Teaching entrepreneurship to your children

Entrepreneurship and summer jobs are on an all time rise in the Indian metros. Parents are encouraging their children to explore business opportunities within their scale and also helping them find jobs during vacation time. Why is this happening and how will teaching entrepreneurship to your children, help them?

Teaching entrepreneurship to your children comes with a great set of opportunities and ability to think beyond the constrained circumstances. We have gathered a list of yantras that you can introduce to your child in the process of building their venture. It could be a business or a social enterprise, to begin with.

What does your child learn through entrepreneurship?

#1 Cash flow management

This is a definite skill set that will be transferred to your child in the process of learning entrepreneurship. Any enterprising venture requires the leader to manage cash flows. They not only understand the accounting rules of cash flow statements but also figure out what it means to keep a low burn rate and a positive balance at the end of every month.

#2 People skills

Dealing with people of different temperament is imperative while running a business. The exercise of entrepreneurship compels your child to involve and resolve with different people. It also helps them understand what it takes to invite and build a team to sustain their business idea. Apart from the internal team they build, they also would pick liaisoning skills while dealing with vendors and strategic alliances.

#3 Pragmatic approach

While your child is dealing with entrepreneurship, they are not reading a chapter from the textbook. In fact, they are doing and getting into action real-time. They will have to deal with reality and not a nice simulated environment where their mistakes will be pardoned. They will be demanded an explanation for the aberrations in the plan. Children will be expected to be responsible and committed to their projects.

Resolving problems in business or any transactional environment requires creative thinking. Basic reasoning and logical thinking are skills that children will have to self-learn while running their own organization. Beyond that, children will run into complex situations which require them to adopt and wear the hat of a creative thinker.

#5 Humility

This is a soft quality, which you would not have expected on this list. With a lot of relearning and unwinding at an early age, children tend to develop a sense of humility towards the rest of the world in the process of building an organization and treading the path of entrepreneurship. It not only helps them venture into business but also makes them responsible socially and become a better human!

How to encourage entrepreneurship among children?

#1 Solve Problems – It could be a domestic problem, a tiff with the sibling or an academic crisis. Let your child deal with the problem in its own way. You need to facilitate them to solve their own problems and not solve it for them. Upon such encouragement, they will come back with a sense of self-reliance and appreciation, even if they lose the post in the process.

#2 Financing – As parents, you might be generous to invest money into your child’s business plan. But, in reality, money and funding do not come in so easy. Encourage your children to find funding options. That would mean creating a business plan and charting out cash flows. Your children should be able to use this tool to pitch among friends and family to raise money. You can also help them validate their business idea by introducing them like Piggybackr. This platform is considered as the ‘Kickstarter for kids’.

#3 Inspiration – Going to School’s youtube channel is a great source of inspiration. They run an exclusive program ‘Idea hotoh aisa’ which runs episodical series of young children who have dared to dream beyond their circumstances and achieve what they wanted to.

#4 Education & Marketing – Educate them about a real-time cause. Inspire and motivate children to pick a real issue and drive them to tackle it. This comes in easy only when children receive constant education about different issues around them. It could be as simple as installing rainwater harvesting in your neighborhood. Here are a few ideas you can encourage your children to involve with.

Separating renewable and non-renewable garbage

Helping stray animals

Cleaning a park

Water conservation

Selling used clothes and accessories

Donating to a homeless children organization.

Helping other children with academics – tutoring

This list can get longer with your creativity. Encourage your child to take up a project and let them start marketing the cause or product.

#5 Business Plan Competitions – Encourage them to promote their ideas at business plan competitions. Yes, there are exclusive business plan competitions help for children. One such initiative is hosted by YEA India. Another one is promoted by Manipal Education called the Teenovators.

If your child has been on the path of entrepreneurship, share your story in the comments section. We would be happy to encourage your child by publishing their story on My Learning Yantra.